A Traveler’s Guide

by: Chic Broersma

Just as Psalm 23 is the most famous psalm, so these words are likely the most-quoted proverb. My parents wrote them into my high school graduation card. My wife and I wrote them into the Bibles we gave our children. My hunch is they will write them into the Bibles they give their children.

I hope that you too have tried to live by these words. I have. Yet, there have been many detours down crooked paths marked by doubt, many times of getting lost and waiting too long before turning back to the Lord for directions, many ruts of self-will in which I’ve gotten stuck. To the degree that we trust our Leader, to that degree we are led into a life worth living.

G. Campbell Morgan observed, “Paths chosen for us by God all lead onward and upward, even when they seem . . . to move downward to the valleys of humiliation and suffering.”

We like to think we’re smart and know where we’re going. Then we crash. And so we resolve again to acknowledge him in all our ways and trust in the paths he chooses for us.